Boxing is a sport that is particularly attractive to young children during the early years when they must learn to vent their aggressive behavior in socially acceptable ways. For parents, there is generally a concern for the safely of their children whenever they participate in activities involving any manner of fighting. The present invention addresses the parents' concern by providing protective clothing and by directing the child's aggression towards a heavily padded decoy face rather than towards an opponent's head. This is done by providing a well padded front portion of the garment and providing a "target" on this padded portion of the garment. The target is the face of, for instance, a professional boxer. In the interest of creating the most interesting face for young children, the face could be very fanciful. Thus, the face that is provided could be that of a ferocious fighter, with all the cartoon-like scars and other features that would most readily stimulate the imagination of the young fighter.
A problem sometimes encountered in boxing among young children is loss of the gloves, resulting in bare hands boxing. This is generally limited to very young children who may not fully understand the risks attendant to bare hands fighting. In older children, where the danger of boxing is better understood, both fighters will generally stop promptly if a glove is lost. This is not necessarily the case with younger children. This risk is amplified by the very small hands of such young children, thus making it difficult to design gloves that can be secured without risk of being lost during a fight. Among the approaches employed previously for designing gloves for young fighters is reducing the weight (and thus the thickness) of the gloves. While this is helpful in keeping the gloves on the fighters' hands, it has the disadvantage of reducing the padding provided for protection. Another approach attempted for keeping the gloves on the hands of boxers involves the extensive use of laces This approach is complicated by the need for un-gloved hands for securing the gloves to each hand. Thus, there must be free hands for the full gloving of the fighters. While this may be feasible in professional boxing, it is definitely not feasible for young boxers. As a result, young boxers frequently skip the laces and end up with the very problem that was intended to be avoided by the complex lacing arrangement. Thus, this approach has not been a viable solution for very young children.
According to the present invention, the young boxer wears a boxing uniform that is decorated with the face of a professional boxer, real or imaginary. The face is provided on the front of the torso of the uniform, providing a target for the opponent. The uniform is particularly well suited to decoy the punches away from the child's head and towards the torso. Consistent with the safety features of the invention, the torso section of the uniform is padded to provide protection from blows thrown by the opponent. The appearance of the boxer's face on the front of the uniform is complemented by the provision of the image of boxer's trunks immediately below the boxer's face. This creates a fanciful image of a cartoon-like boxer and is particularly well suited to stimulate the child's imagination and thus to enhance the enjoyment of the wearing of the uniform.
The garment may be worn as a piece of clothing or it may be a pillow-like front portion that is secured to the front of the child by, for instance, elastic straps that are provided to loop behind the child's neck and legs. The image on the front of the garment may include three dimensional features to further enhance the enjoyment of the garment. For instance, the nose of the illustrated boxer may extent forward to provide a good target for the child. In addition to providing a good target, this feature will increase the child's ability to imagine that he is the boxer himself as he wears the garment with the boxer's image on the front.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a child's toy that permits a child to engage in fanciful boxing without being subjected to the dangers typically encountered in boxing.
It is another object of the invention to provide a padded and decorated boxing toy having a simulated face of a boxer on the front of the toy to promote imaginary competition in the sport of boxing while protecting the child wearing the padded toy from being exposed to the typical dangers of boxing.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a padded garment to be worn on the front of a child's torso during a boxing contest to enhance the child's feeling of enjoyment while at the same time protecting the child.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a garment for simulated boxing having adjustable sleeves, each of the adjustable sleeves, having boxing gloves attached to the ends so the length of the sleeves may be conformed to the length of the arms of the child wearing the garment.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a garment to be worn by a child in a manner such that the opponent in a boxing match will direct the punches towards the padded torso rather than the child's head. This is done by providing a fanciful boxer's face on a portion of the padded torso portion of the garment and by providing the image of boxer's trunks along the lower portion of the garment.
It is another object of the invention to provide a garment having combinations of the features described in these objects.